


Bound To Break (And Our Hands Are Tied)

by pansexualorgana (MaximumMarygold)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Everyone Has Issues, F/M, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Trans Male Character, Trans Richie Tozier, Vampires, and tag shit, but dont worry they have a plan, but ill like warn you, eddie has a cat, her name is sir pouncival, kind of, so you can skip it, uh theyre gonna fuck at some point heads up, vampire mike hanlon, vampires rule the world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:08:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22194568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaximumMarygold/pseuds/pansexualorgana
Summary: Something cool and dry brushed against the back of Richie’s hand -- it took him a moment to realize that something was Eddie’s fingers, “It’s a little strange for me as well. Obviously, not in the same way. But I do hope you’ll be… happy? Here. Eventually.”Well, fuck. That was. Surprisingly candid and earnest. Especially for someone with such a giant fucking upper hand in the game.And what, the actual goddamn hell, was Richie supposed to say back to that? The truth? That no one could be truly happy in a cage? That he was actively planning to take down the very institution that made their arrangement possible and, hey, maybe even kill Eddie in the process?“So do I,” he settled on, still refusing to look Eddie in the eye.(The Vampire AU No One Fucking Asked For)
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	1. hello (please don't say goodbye)

**Author's Note:**

> look guys i dont fuckin know either but here we fucking are

Richie Tozier spun the ring on his right thumb nervously. The parlor he was in (and who used that word anymore, honestly? Fucking pretentious. It was a fucking living room.) was apparently made specifically to make him uncomfortable. Dark wood and crimson, bloody red -- was that  _ velvet _ ? Seriously? 

Apparently the ruling class of monsters hadn’t bothered to open one single  _ Better Homes  _ magazine before taking over the world. 

The only thing that was missing was  _ Evanescence  _ circa 2003 playing softly on vinyl somewhere in a dimly lit corner of the massive room.

Oh, and The Master. He was missing, too.

Richie spun the ring with a little more fervor.

Bloodsuckers ruling the world sounded like some bullshit fantasy for teenage girls everywhere to wet themselves over while new and seasoned authors alike would shrug their shoulders because, hey, they’d stop beating that dead horse when it stopped spitting out money. 

And vampires had been the poor, mangled equine corpse of choice, right up until Robert Gray said  _ fuck this _ and toppled the world governments. It wasn’t hard, all he had to do was wave his hands and snap his fangs and the world, as they say, was his oyster.

Humans never stood a goddamn chance.

Richie had been thirteen when that happened. He had gotten to watch the world around him go to shit at the same time he was hitting puberty (which he totally wasn’t bitter about, like, at all).

But this was all according to plan -- the ostentatious room, velvet sofa, the titanium strong desire to  _ vomit _ . It was Bill’s plan. Most dumbass things Richie did were the result of Bill Denbrough having a plan. 

The heavy door behind Richie clicked open, the squeaking of the wood sending a palpable shiver down Richie’s spine. It was uncommon for someone his age to be bought, let alone by someone as high on the pecking order as Edward Kaspbrak. The man was practically Robert Gray’s right hand. 

Or possibly his pet. It was hard to be sure with vampires. 

But Richie had gotten lucky -- Edward wasn’t looking for some barely legal twink to warm his bed, or some rare blood type to act as a delicacy at some fancy dinner party.

He wanted a companion. Someone around his age (or the age he’d been when he’d been turned) to keep him company, maybe do some basic housework. Be a housewife, basically.

Fuck it, Richie could be the Alfred to Edward’s Batman for a minute or two.

Finally turning, feigning nonchalance, Richie tossed a lopsided grin over his shoulder, “Mr. Wayne, I presume? Are you here to bid me ‘velcome?” Brain to mouth filter:  _ disengaged _ .

It was hard to really  _ have  _ expectations when it came to vamps -- they could be a thousand years old and look barely out of their teens. But even still, Edward was not what Richie expected. 

For one, he was, like, hot. 

And most vampires were beautiful, okay. At least the ones at the Top. That was a  _ thing _ . But Edward was frowning, and there were lines on his forehead that crinkled with the expression, and canyon deep dimples on either of his cheeks. 

He was wearing a  _ polo  _ and Richie kind of wanted to smooth out the crease between his eyebrows with his thumb.

That was the entirely wrong reaction. It did  _ not  _ fit in with Bill’s plan.

“Excuse me?” Edward asked, sneaking a glance behind him before shutting the door he came through silently. 

“Like, Bruce Wayne?” Richie said, still a little dumbstruck, “Batman?”

“I know who Bruce Wayne is,” the newest addition to Richie’s Spank Bank waved one hand like the very concept was absurd, “but what the fuck were you thinking; talking to me like that where people could have  _ heard  _ you? Are you fucking insane?”

Richie forced himself to relax into his armchair, mentally scolding his joints until they got with the program and loosened and he could artfully arrange all 34 of his elbows into something like a lounge, “Jury’s out,” he said, which was, okay, not the wittiest of retorts. But his brain had short circuited the second Edward had stepped into the room and he was still trying to get everything back online.

Cut him some  _ slack _ .

“Are you serious?” Edward demanded, moving further into the room. He was. Shorter. Than Richie would have thought. Compact, even. “Are you fucking serious right now? They could cut out your  _ tongue  _ for that shit.” He rounded the couch, standing in front of the chair Richie was perched on with his arms crossed.

“Never been much for rules,” Richie said slowly, all the effort he put into his careful sprawl completely moot as he leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees, “never expected a bloodsucker to give a shit about a measly human, either.”

Scoffing, Edward claimed the loveseat on the opposite side of the, presumably solid oak, coffee table, one arm draped across the back while he studied Richie closely, “Do you know how much I just spent on you? It would be a waste to let you get arrested in ten minutes.”

Now they were getting somewhere; “And why  _ did  _ you pay nearly a million dollars for me?” He asked, “They told  _ me  _ companionship, but honestly that sounds like a crock of shit that’s short for ‘I want that twink obliterated’, and I don’t put out on the first date. Especially not for someone who might take ‘eating out’ a little too literally.”

Actually, the reason that the vampire in front of him had just dropped  _ ninety hundred and seventy thousand dollars  _ for Richie’s 38 year old, definitely-not-mint-condition ass was Beverly Marsh, who was probably the most terrifying human Richie had ever met and  _ fuck  _ was he glad to be on her good side.

She’d arranged the whole thing. Manipulated the right people, alive and undead, pulled just the right strings. And Bam. Richie Tozier was sitting in Edward Kaspbrak’s living room.

“I didn’t buy you for sex,” Edward’s nose wrinkled at the thought, which, hurtful? “The house is just too goddamn big for me and maintaining it is a bastard of a job.”

“Get a housekeeper?” Richie said, like it was obvious, “They’re definitely cheaper. I don’t even have a favorable blood type, man. What the fuck possessed you to pick me?”

Again, Beverly Marsh was the answer. Richie knew that, but he needed to know what  _ Edward  _ knew. 

“It gets lonely,” he said after a few, very tense seconds, “believe it or not, others like me aren’t very good company.”

“It was nice of you to add the ‘or not’ there, like there was a chance I wouldn’t believe that the undead weren’t exactly  _ lively _ ,” Richie covered his mouth with his interlaced fingers to hide the smile that was trying to sneak out.

After the red velvet and the dark stained oak, his imagination had taken a bit of turn into the Bram Stoker, Vlad The Impaler territory. Edward was almost. Normal.

Which in itself was weird as fuck. He’d seen vamps out and about. A whole race of pretentious as fuck, silver spoon art students who either partied until the sun came up with extra Bloody Mary’s or had their noses so far up in the air he half expected them to run into doorways.

Or at least windows, since they couldn’t see their reflections. 

Either way, they were not the poster children for  _ normal _ .

“Nice for whom?” Edward asked, quirking one eyebrow _ and who the fuck let the vampire be cute _ ?

Chuckling lowly, Richie raked a hand through his messy curls, “Is this how you entranced your victims before the takeover?” Remember, Richie: the guy ate people. His dimples did not change the fact. Don’t be stupid. This was not going to end well. “Made them laugh and then went in for a snack?”

Edward’s nose wrinkled, “No,” he said, and that was that.

_ Cute, cute, cute _ .

“Very enlightening, Eds. Truly.” It was getting late; he was going to have to adapt to a nocturnal schedule, he supposed. But until very recently he’d been firmly on Team Sunlight and the whole day had just been a  _ lot, _ and had Richie trying valiantly (with his mother’s voice nagging him to  _ have some goddamn manners once in a while, I did not raise you in a barn you little shit  _ ringing in his ears) to stifle a truly monster yawn.

By the look on Edward’s face, he hadn’t quite succeeded. But there also seemed to be slightly more pressing matters, “Don’t fucking call me that.”

“What?” Richie asked, blinking owlishly behind his glasses. Stifled yawns were like aborted sneezes; disorienting and unsatisfying, “Eds?”

“Yes. That.” The vampire’s entire face was crinkled in disdain, “Edward is fine.”

Fat fucking chance on that one, buddy.

“Nope,” Richie popped his ‘p’ like he had not a care in the world. Like this wasn’t the most surreal experience of his life.

Like he wasn’t seven seconds, give or take, from a complete and total breakdown. 

Like he hadn’t been listing off every color he could come up with in his head for the last half an hour just to try to ward off the growing panic tying a noose in his chest. 

“How about Eddie?”

“What am I? Seven?” Edward, now officially Eddie, drawled, but as a matter of fact, when Richie tried to picture him as a child he could almost see it. He would have been a runt of a child; probably would have worn some dumb fucking shit, possibly even had a fanny pack.

“On a scale of one to ten,” Richie shot back with a wink.

Christ, would someone get him a squirt bottle so he could spray water in his own face every time he flirted with the goddamn vampire who had  _ bought  _ him like he was a purebred Pekanese? The goddamn vampire he was going to have to charm information out of and, if all went  _ according to plan _ , impale with a stake?

Because that was it. That was Big Bill’s Big Plan. Edward Kaspbrak wanted a middle aged dude to, fuck who knows? Bond with? And Bill happened to know a middle aged dude who was a pretty decent actor and could talk his way out of just about anything, who  _ also  _ happened to be a part of the same goddamn Fuck Vampires (™) movement that Bill himself was. 

The plan was pretty fucking easy to figure out after that. Get Richie into Edward’s house to siphon information back to the resistance who would then use said information to re-topple the government and overthrow the bloodsuckers. 

So, no. Richie was not allowed to flirt with the vampire, and he was especially not allowed to find him charming. 

Because at the end of all of this, Edward Kaspbrak was going to have to die. 

At that super fun thought, Richie started fiddling with his ring again. It had been a gift from Bev; a simple silver spinner with  _ Faster When You Fall  _ inscribed in clear script. A tribute to the song they’d declared their official anthem; them and Stan and Bill. 

_ “Beautiful Losers,” she’d said, watching them all open their packages at the same time, lifting her hand to show off her identical ring. She was the most beautiful of them, Richie had thought, had known with everything in him. She was so bright; from her hair to her smile to her painted nails. She burned with it. A supernova.  _

_ Bill, quiet and strong, hadn’t trusted his stutter for a response and settled for drawing her into a hug, tucking his face into her halo of red hair and breathing. She’d been his first love, that Beverly Marsh, and she wasn’t the type of girl you stopped loving. Bill’s love for her had changed, yes, but it never went anywhere. And she loved him back, loved them all back, just as fiercely.  _

_ Staring at the new addition to his right ring finger, Stan smiled softly. Everything Stan did was soft; his voice, his hugs, his admonishments. His heart. “I’m your oldest and your best friend,” he said, “whenever you need me, I’ll be there again.” He looked at Richie then, sixteen and gangly as ever, “You’ve never been second best to me,” he said, and Richie’s eyes stung. _

_ He grabbed for Stan’s hand tugging him into the fray, trapping him against Bev and Bill.  _

_ He loved all three of them so much he thought he was going to be consumed by it. He would walk through hell for them. They were the best things in his life, no question. _

If he fucked this up, he would never see them again. That alone was enough of an incentive to keep it in his pants. He had to do this right; for Bill, and Bev, and Stan. They were fucking counting on him. 

They all had their own shit to do.

Bev’s master (gag) was a real fucking asshole, she had her fucking hands full just trying to survive Tom’s bullshit. But there was a guy in her manor that --as the general consenses decided-- was sweet as hell on her. Ben Handsome or some shit. 

Stan and Bill weren’t attached to a vampire, floating around, doing odd jobs here or there for money. Existing under the radar enough to pull off some goddamn ridiculous stunts.

The point was, no one had time to babysit his dumb ass and make sure he didn’t fuck everything up because they accidentally picked a vampire with a pretty face for him to spy on.

He had to get it  _ together _ or they were all dead. 

That thought fucking  _ hurt _ . It hit him like a truck right in the ribs. It knocked the breath out of his lungs with the force of it until he felt like he’d never taken a full breath in his whole life. Until he was gasping, his fingers scrabbling at the alien fabric of his slacks, looking for purchase. Something to ground him. To hold him down. To pull him back to the surface because he was  _ drowning _ .

“Richard?” Something cold touched his cheeks and that was his name being spoken from somewhere up on the surface. 

The noose in his chest tightened; the ground was out from under him and he was falling, falling, falling.

“Richard!”

He chased the darkness surrounding him; it promised nothing, everything. It promised not knowing. It promised abyss and forgetting.

He grabbed onto it with both hands and held fast.

And he sunk.

..........

Awareness returned slowly. His head hurt; that goddamn deep throb right behind his eyes that meant he’d panicked his way onto the goddamn floor. He was familiar enough with the sensation that it stopped to make him breakfast on it’s way out the door. 

They were more than one night stands -- it was a full fucking relationship. The longest he’d ever had. 

The frequency of panic induced faintings had decreased fairly steadily over the years. He’s lived in a fucking horror movie for a couple of decades, he was bound to be de-fucking-sensitized to some things.

The top three he could come up with, in no particular order, were: coming out as trans  _ and  _ bi to his parents in one graceless swoop at eighteen, the day his dad had died, and directly after Bill had told him he was going to be Edward Kaspbrak’s new plaything.

Fucking Edward fucking Kaspbrak had made Richie pass out  _ twice  _ now and fuck him, that was not going to go unanswered for.

Fabric rustled somewhere to Richie’s left -- by the time he managed to coax his eyes open (with sweet nothings and promises of vengeance in equal measure) Edward - Eddie- was already leaning over him. 

“Jesus Christ, are you all right?” The vampire blurted and Richie’s ire folded in on itself. 

Jesus Christ was right. 

“Fine,” Richie managed to croak, heaving himself to sit up against the pillows behind him and forcing Eddie out of his personal space. He was in a  _ bed _ . The fanciest bed he’d ever seen. It had posts, for fucks sake. “How did I get here?” 

He didn’t bother to ask what had happened -- like he’d already said. He and his panic attacks were intimate as fuck with each other. He fucking knew what happened. 

“I carried you,” Eddie said, simply, shrugging one shoulder. He’d added a soft looking red sweater over his polo. Richie was not charmed in the slightest, “After you-”

“Passed out like a tacky romance novel maiden,” he finished. “Yeah, sorry, I probably should have mentioned that was a possibility. When I get freaked out I can sometimes…” instead of finishing with words, Richie simply lifted his arm and bent his wrist with a short whistle to indicate toppling over.

Eddie worried his bottom lip between his too-sharp teeth, actually looking contrite, “It was never my intention to freak you out. Was it something I said?” 

Richie huffed out a breath of air through his nose that could have maybe been a snort of laughter, in another life as he let his head loll backwards until he was staring straight up at the ceiling, “No,” he said after a moment, “no. You’ve been. Fine, I guess? I don’t really know what the protocol is with most blo-- vampires, actually. It’s just the whole ‘being bought’ bit. Like, you own me? That’s a lot for anyone to really, I don’t know,  _ get _ ?” 

Anyone human, that is. 

Also, what fancy fucking manor house had  _ popcorn ceilings  _ in this day and age? Seriously, who the fuck was Eddie’s decorator? If part of this sham of a job was ‘basic housekeeping’ he was going to be doing some honestly hardcore redecorating. Ceilings? Shaved. Velvet? Gone.

He was wearing a hawiian fucking shirt and he had better taste than this house, okay. There was something wrong.

“I understand,” Eddie said softly. Something cool and dry brushed against the back of Richie’s hand -- it took him a moment to realize that something was Eddie’s fingers, “It’s a little strange for me as well. Obviously, not in the same way. But I  _ do  _ hope you’ll be… happy? Here. Eventually.”

Well, fuck. That was. Surprisingly candid and earnest. Especially for someone with such a giant fucking upper hand in the game. 

And what, the actual goddamn hell, was Richie supposed to say back to that? The truth? That no one could be truly happy in a cage? That he was actively planning to take down the very institution that made their arrangement possible and, hey, maybe even kill Eddie in the process? 

“So do I,” he settled on, still refusing to look Eddie in the eye.

Talk about double edged swords. Yeah, he’d love to not be miserable for as long as it took to get enough usable information to take down Gray, but logically (which was not his strong suit, he was well aware, thanks Stan) liking Eddie would make it fucking hard to betray him later.

Richie was a bastard but he wasn’t 100% a dick. 

“It’s almost sunrise,” Eddie said, approximately an eternity later as he rose to his feet stiffly, “I should…”

“Yeah, I get it. Go back to your coffin, Dracula,” Richie waved a hand, “I’ll be fine.” Because he actually, sort of, believed that was something Eddie would give a shit about.

“There are human’s who tend to the house during the day. Find one of them if you need anything. I’ll,” a pause, and Richie still wasn’t looking but he could  _ feel  _ Eddie’s eyes on him, “I’ll see you in the evening, Richard.”

Choking on the unexpected laugh is what finally urged Richie to lift his head and grin weakly at the vampire in his room. He vaguely remembered Eddie calling him that when he’d passed out, actually. And it was a common misconception, “It’s Richie,” he said, “just Richie. It’s not short for anything.” 

He was right, though, Eddie had been looking at him. Intensely. And he hadn’t noticed before, but the other man had… really nice eyes. Warm, and brown. They glinted when he was amused.

“Your parents named you  _ Richie _ ?” 

“It was my Christmas Wish, actually,” at Eddie’s gentle laughter Richie shrugged and decided to go big since he, for the moment, was home, “I picked it, actually. I um. I’m trans? Which I don’t know if vampires have a word for but-”

“I know what it means,” the vampire said, lips quirking into a small, private smile that wasn’t at all at Richie’s expense. It was actually eerily familiar to the looks Stan, Bill, and Bev had given them when he’d first come out. “Thank you,” Eddie said, “for trusting me with it.”

Pursing his lips in an awkward smile, Richie decided to end the conversation there, once again training his eyes on the abomination of a ceiling, “Good day, Eddie,” he said after a moment. That was totally the vampire equivalent of ‘goodnight’ right? “Sleep sweet.”

“Good day, Richie.” Eddie’s quiet chuckles lingered long after he’d shut the door behind him and that was a fucking problem.

Richie rolled onto his side, clutching an overly comfortable  _ was that memory foam?  _ pillow to his chest. He didn’t scream into it -- but only just. 

None of this was going to end well. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. i do not wanna die inside just to breathe in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why praytell is my whole editing process for this fucker just to go back and add more sass

Eddie? Had a private librarian and historian, for some? Fucking reason? 

To be quite fucking honest, Richie was too tired to really question it. He’d slept like shit and then woken up (with a fucking headache) to find the clothes he’d worn the day before missing, replaced with a crisp white shirt that looked like it belonged in some Anne Rice bullshit novel, and black pants. 

Sure, okay. What the fuck ever, he was playing the part, he could dress the part. The only problem was that whoever had collected his clothes from the floor had also taken his  _ binder _ . 

He tried the fucking outfit on, and yeah, it would look bomb as fuck on him if his fucking chest was bound. Because at the moment? The Dysphoria Goblin in his brain was goddamn  _ screaming _ .

Which is why he was convinced that the librarian was an  _ angel _ , rather than a bloodsucker. Like, goddamn. Mike let him wear the quilt from his bed like a fucking cape all the way down to the laundry room, where a very nice (human) woman named Padma apologized profusely for the girls on dayshift and handed him back his freshly laundered clothes.

And Richie was fucking right --once he had his binder back, he looked goddamn amazing dressed as David Bowie circa 1986. 

“Thanks, man,” Richie said, fiddling with the cuffs of his new shirt, “you’re an actual lifesaver.” 

Laughing warmly, Mike clapped him on the back. He was taller than Eddie, dark skinned, and unafraid to show his fangs when he smiled; which he did. Often and freely. It was disconcerting. Who smiled that much? 

“Seriously, it wasn’t a problem. I’m happy I could help.” There he goes. Again. With the smiling. And the thing was he was fucking genuine about it. He was actually happy about being able to take ten minutes out of his night to help a squishy little human. 

Richie smiled back. What the fuck else was he supposed to do? Frown? At  _ Michael Hanlon _ ? It would be like drop kicking a kitten across a football field. 

Eddie was waiting for Richie in the dining room for breakfast -- Richie was dragging his feet. Pretty fucking understandably, one would think. Like; how did vampires eat? Was there just going to be some  _ rocking twink  _ laid out over the table across from Richie’s  _ Frosties _ ? 

He didn’t wanna know.

He took his sweet ass time, asking Mike this and that. Peering into rooms just to find out what they were (dusty was usually the answer). 

“Hey, so uh… why does Eddie need a personal historian?” Richie asked when it was clear they were getting close and he still wasn’t ready to face the dimples.

(Or, like, anything else about Eddie.) 

“He doesn’t,” Mike admitted with a wry grin, “but he’s the one who turned me, so I guess he’s always felt a little responsible.” At Richie’s skeptical look, Mike shook his head, “No, you don’t…” He paused, took a deep breath through his nose, and looked away.

“I would have  _ died _ . I was attacked by a bunch of alt-right assholes a couple of years before the takeover. I was bleeding out in the middle of the street, and then Eddie was just. There. He saved me.” 

“He does seem to have a certain softness for squishy humans,” Richie muttered, remembering the previous night before turning to Mike with a sad sort of look, “I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry that--” he didn’t finish. 

He wished someone like Eddie had been around after the takeover. When Bill’s baby brother had been attacked. Maybe. Would being a bloodsucker be better or worse than being plain old dead?

But Georgie hadn’t been attacked by a random band of racists. He’d been attacked by a bloodsucker;  _ the  _ bloodsucker. Robert Gray himself, who had a self professed preference for the blood of children.

(A bit… problematic, there, Joanna. Immoral, even.)

“Hey,” Mike’s hand landed on Richie’s shoulder, heavy and comforting; with the blanket, Richie could even pretend it was warm, “I know things aren’t… ideal. But Eddie isn’t a bad guy. He’s not going to hurt you.”

_ No,  _ Richie thought, swallowing harshly around a lump in his throat,  _ I’m going to hurt him _ . “I’m not afraid,” he lied, his fingers clenching tighter on the quilt, “just. Taking in the terrible decor and it’s making me a bit nauseous.” 

“It is a little…”

“Bit of a circlejerk of vampire cliches?” Richie finished, smug as hell when Mike laughed again, “Yeah, I saw the popcorn ceilings last night and almost had an aneurysm. On top of all the red velvet it was just too much.”

“I agree, man,” Mike shook his head, pushing open yet another wooden door and ushering Richie through, “but Master Gray designed the place himself. Eddie won’t change it.” 

“Unfortunate,” Richie drawled, glancing around, his eyes immediately landing on the man at the table.

There was, thankfully, only one rocking twink in the room and he was fully clothed.

Eddie looked much the same as he did the night before: a pale polo, a worn, soft looking cardigan, fitted slacks. This time, though, there was a book in his hands and a fluffy gray cat on his lap. 

The gasp that Richie tried to hold back came barreling out of his chest like a freight train.

Oh,  _ fuck _ .

He’d managed to, mostly, steel himself to a ‘morning’ of Eddie Kaspbrak and his extremely endearing, entirely un-vampire-like everything. No one fucking warned him about the  _ cat _ .

He feels like he should have been warned about the cat??

Looking up at the noise, though he could probably hear them coming from a mile away since a) Richie Tozier was many things and  _ quiet  _ was decidedly not one of them, and more importantly b) bloodsuckers could literally hear a pin drop, Eddie smiled at the pair of them standing in the doorway.

“You’ve met Mike,” and he sounded so fucking glad about the whole thing that Richie had a hell of a hard time not smiling back, “that’s good.”

“Yeah,” Richie said and if he was a little breathless? He was binding; his lungs were fucking compressed. Mind ya’ business, “You have a cat?”

Eddie looked down, smile widening at the ball of fluff snoozing on his lap, “Does anyone really  _ have  _ a cat?” 

Humming sagely, Richie gathered the very last dregs of his courage to actually enter the room. As long as he made a beeline for the chair across from Eddie and didn't actually  _ look _ at the man in question he would be fine. In theory.

“So, Fluffy over here has an Eddie?” He amended, just to say something.

_ Squirt, squirt. Bad Richie. _

“Her name is Sir Pouncival,” Mike corrected with barely concealed glee -- Eddie shot him a look like an angry Pomeranian (which was just a regular Pomeranian at any point in time. Those little shits were fucking evil).

“You named your cat after a cat…  _ from  _ CATS?” 

“Can everyone stop fucking ragging on my house and my pet, please?” Eddie finally burst out, dropping his book to throw his hands up in the air.

Disgruntled at being jostled, Sir Pouncival lifted her head with an imperious kind of look and meowed her displeasure. She sounded like an old, Russian grandmother who smoked 3 packs a day for, like, 60 years, and Richie decided then and there he would die for that fucking animal. She was literally perfect. That cat could possibly be his soulmate.

“Dude, your cat is the fucking Baba Yaga; I’m not ragging on her. I might be in love with her,” he tapped his fingers against the table in front of him, catching Pouncival’s attention immediately. She watched him with rapt green eyes, tracking his movements as she shifted in Eddie’s lap, preparing her attack. “Yes, good, come on you beautiful little asshole, come get my fingers.” And prepare to be pet.

Pouncival’s eyes weren’t the only ones drawn to Richie’s hands, but he was going to pointedly ignore Eddie’s eyes on him. The cat was good. Cats got him through every house party he’d ever attended. 

He wasn't Shane Dawson; he didn’t wanna fuck the cat and ruin everything and doom the world, like he wanted to fuck Eddie. So, that was one point for the cat, no points for Eddie, and  _ negative five  _ for Richie who should goddamn know better.

(Remember that show  _ Lizzie McGuire  _ where the girl had like, the cartoon version of herself keeping score of how she fucked up? Richie had one of those, except the cartoon was Stan and he just stood in front of a chalkboard looking unimpressed.) 

When the cat lived up to her name, Richie was ready; pulling his hand just out of reach before she could dig her claws in, “Gotcha!” He crowed, using her newfound closeness to give her a scritch under her fluffy chin.

She was an excellent cat. Even her cheeks were fluffy. And she apparently decided that Richie was adequate as well, tilting her head into his hand and purring too loudly for a beast so small. 

“Oh, yeah, I would never say a bad word about this cat,” Richie finally looked up to meet Eddie’s eyes across the table, “Your decor, however… Dude, what the fuck?”

“I’ve been telling him for years that velvet is a bit much,” Mike piped up, “You should check out the library, after you eat,” he recommended, “I had free reign in there. It looks like less of a--”

“'Circlejerk of vampire cliches',” Eddie waved his hand, “I heard you both in the hallway, thank you very much. And like Mike said, Master Gray had the place decorated before I got here.”

“Well, new family project: let’s redecorate the bitch. God, is your coffin velvet lined, too?” Because that would just be too much, and, plan or no plan, Richie would be contractually obligated to throw himself off of the nearest belfry.

Eddie looked appalled, “I don’t sleep in a fucking coffin.”

“Plastic race car?”

“I sleep in a  _ bed,  _ you jackass.” Fuck, Eddie’s feral sort of fury was cute as all hell. He was all bark and no bite but, well, it was a hell of a bark.

"Someone definitely woke up on the wrong side of the race car," Richie whispered conspiratorially to Mike, who choked on the laughter he was trying to hold back.

Eddie grit his teeth and took a sip from the darkly tinted mug in front of him. If Richie didn't know any better, he'd figure he was just a normal guy having a morning cup of coffee.

But Eddie wasn't normal, and that wasn't coffee. A fact that was highlighted by the way his eyes flared a pale, icy, unnatural blue. It was the first real sign that something about Eddie wasn’t human; had Richie not known better he could have fooled himself into thinking they were just two normal dudes having breakfast at seven PM. It would have been  _ easy _ .

Too easy, honestly. 

And? No? No, thank you? Who asked for this? Richie sure as fuck hadn’t.

"What does it taste like?" Richie blurted, because, as per usual, his mouth didn't consult his brain before speaking and, when things were too easy, he had a contractual obligation to make them harder, "Blood, I mean. Like. To you." 

He'd tasted his own blood, of course. He'd been chewing on the inside of his lips anxiously since before he knew what anxiety  _ was,  _ and it was just straight instinct to put an injured finger directly into his mouth without passing go or collecting any money.

But to him, it was just metallic, salty, and unappealing. 

Like the turtle in the sky  _ fucking intended _ .

Eddie blinked and set his mug down, his eyebrows furrowed in consideration like he'd never been asked the question before. Hell, maybe he hadn't. Most people didn’t see the appeal in taunting vampires.

And what, from the bottom of his heart, the fuck did he think he was doing. Who taunted vampires? 

“I mean,” Eddie broke through the impending panic fogging through Richie’s brain, “I don’t know.” He furrowed his eyebrows ( _ cute _ ) and took another slow sip, closing his eyes like he was searching for a memory long gone, “It’s just? It’s what I drink. I’ve been like this for so long I don’t remember anything else.”

Which raised a whole slew of new questions. Namely: just how fucking old  _ was  _ Eddie? 

Baffled and unsatisfied by the bullshit non-answer he’d just been given, Richie turned to Mike for help, “Hanlon?”

Taking a long sip from his own mug at the other end of the table, Mike looked like a mosquito caught in the headlights, “What?” He asked, dumbstruck, “I don’t know. I can’t compare it to anything; it doesn’t taste like anything I ate as a human.”

“Didn’t like your steak extra rare?” Richie asked, lips twitching into a grin.

“I was a vegetarian, actually,” Mike admitted sheepishly.

Out of the corner of his eye, Richie saw Eddie flinch.

Interesting.

Richie’s breakfast, thank fuck, was a little more solid; eggs, bacon, and toast with a side of fresh fruit, and a mug the size of his goddamn face that actually contained coffee.

“I have to go into town, today,” Eddie said, after Richie had eaten so much that he was seriously considering just fucking off for the rest of the day and taking the dankest nap the world had ever seen.

He hadn’t expected to actually get a chance to go snooping around for at least a week. Possibly more. He figured he’d be in it for the long con. 

“Okay,” he said after a pregnant pause that stretched on for eons, throat dry as the Sahara. He should be elated--the sooner he could break into Eddie’s office and find dirt on Gray, the sooner he could take down the bastard that killed the best little brother the world had ever seen.

At this rate, he’d be in and out before he even had to get to know Eddie at all. 

The thought made the part of him that he’d been dutifully repressing since the first time he and Stan had done reconnaissance on Eddie a month earlier, lift its stupid goblin head and screech.

He  _ wanted  _ to know Eddie.

Where the fuck was his squirt bottle.  _ Squirt, squirt. Bad Richie. _

_ Beep, beep, motherfucker _ , Stan’s voice whispered, smacking the chalkboard with a yardstick.

“I was wondering if you’d like to come with me.”

_ Oh. Oh, shit _ .

Well, that certainly was not a part of Big Bill’s plan.

Okay, Richie. Moment of truth. Say no. Just say no. It’s not hard. It’s just a word. You’ve said it a hundred times a day since you learned how to speak.

“Where are we going?” He asked, instead. Because despite the best efforts of literally every poor, poor motherfucker to ever make his acquaintance: Richie Tozier was a fucking dumbass. 

Eddie’s answering smile brought his dimples back into play.

_ F. U. C. K. _

* * *

Eddie’s car was a sleek, black SUV with darkly tinted windows. They sat in the back, which Eddie didn’t seem particularly thrilled about. Richie filed that information away for later. 

He’d traded in the polo and sweater for a button up and jacket.

“So, why is it that you get to look like a person and I’m over here dressed like the goddamn goblin king?” Richie asked, pulling at the sleeves of his shirt self consciously, trying to make them cover his hands.

Going out in public had not been part of the plan. He felt like his heart had lodged itself in his throat -- was sure that with every beat his skin was stretching grotesquely like a frog about to croak.

Shifting uncomfortably, Eddie looked very pointedly out the window. Richie could see the passing lights in the reflection of the smaller man’s eyes. “It’s a status thing,” he answered quietly, “and petty at that. Whenever you saw vampires in the media before the takeover they always wore those ridiculous billowing shirts and pants. Robert thought it would be funny to swap things around.”

“At least you’re not making me rub myself down in body glitter,” Richie said, trying for good humor but probably falling flat. “So, my  _ Labyrinth  _ cosplay is just to announce to the world that I’m… what? Human?” He certainly hadn’t dressed up when he was working at his dad’s office.

“No,” Eddie shook his head, lips quirking in an almost invisible smile in the window, “It’s to announce that you’re mine.”

Liquid fire lit up Richie’s nerves like a wire. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. His fingers flexed; knuckles cracking and turning white with how hard he clenched his fists.

What the ever-loving fuck was that even supposed to  _ mean _ ? Eddie, the fucking feral asshole he was, didn't seem particularly keen to give up any answers on his own and like fuck was Richie going to go digging.

He had a job to do and it sure as hell didn't include plucking petals off a flower to answer inane, bullshit questions. 

“Where are we going?” Richie asked, again, just to fucking say something and break the oppressive goddamn silence. Because Eddie hadn’t given him a straight answer (again) earlier, just saying that he had some work stuff to do in the heart of what used to be New York. 

“I have to--”

“Do some work shit,” Richie interrupted, sliding down in his seat and crossing his too-long legs, “you said that. What kind of work shit?”

Eddie pressed his lips together into a thin line, looking for all the world like he was having some sort of internal argument with the ghost of Bela Lugosi himself, before sighing, “I’m a risk analyst,” he said, finally.

“Wow,” Richie drawled, “That sounds fascinating. Was that job invented before fun?” A swift kick to his shin had him wincing but he still couldn’t help but preen at the amused way Eddie shook his head.

“Fuck you, man,” he said, “And watch your mouth; we’re in public.”

Ugh. The fucking laws.

Richie was technically a second-class citizen. Like a cow who’d grown thumbs and developed the ability to speak in human languages. Being with Eddie was, literally, the best case legal scenario. He could be rounded up into a camp where he was routinely drained of his blood for years. He could be sold to sadists who liked to torture humans for fun just to watch their squishy insides become their outsides. 

Hell, humans were considered a  _ fetish _ (his brain jumped to Bev of its own accord and his fists clenched so tightly he could feel his nails pricking his palms). 

Then, there were the breeding camps. Where those with The Good Blood (™) were shoved together and forced to fuck and have children, only for the children to be immediately taken and fed to people like  _ Robert Fucking Gray. _

“What risk are we analyzing, Captain Ed’s?” Richie asked, having to concentrate very hard to unclench his jaw to speak and his hands before he drew blood. Moving each muscle was a slow, agonizing process that felt like it took a century. 

Fucking.

This is why he was here. This is why he was doing what he was doing. 

For Georgie. And for Bev. And for every poor fucker that the bloodsuckers walked all over like they were nothing. 

One good fucker among a billion evil didn’t count for  _ shit  _ in the grand scheme of things.

And hell, who said Eddie was good? Eddie still associated with Gray, who  _ ate kids _ . Maybe he was just playing the long con with Richie, like Richie was with him. Maybe Richie’s only chance was to get his shit together and kill Eddie before Eddie killed him.

Maybe--

“There have been talks of a resistance group in the area,” Eddie said, “Robert asked me to check it out.”

Resistance groups in the--

_ Fuck. _

Bill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sir pouncival is literally just my husband and my cat Ragnarok who passed away just before thanksgiving. she did in fact sound like a russian grandmother -- i would call her Babushcat and she would yell at me
> 
> there are pictures and even a video still up on instagram @persianrag
> 
> you know the drill
> 
> just. pansexualorgana on everything


	3. deep blue but you painted me golden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go again

He hadn’t thought it was possible, but in less than three days Richie had used the word “fuck” so much that it had just about lost any and all meaning to him. And just. The  _ fuck _ , man? 

What had Bill been _thinking_? Actually, scratch that. That was a dumb question since _clearly_ the answer was that _he had not been._ What had **_Stan_** been thinking? He was the one who kept Bill on his leash -- he was clearly slacking.

Unless their fearless leader had developed  _ clairvoyance  _ in the last seventy-two goddamn hours and had seen Richie’s inevitable fucking up of the situation… The fuck, Billium? 

If he kept this up he was going to be arrested and then executed with extreme prejudice. Eddie was already on the case like the goddamn  _ Scooby Doo Gang _ (though, really he would be more of, like, a germophobic, neurotic, vampire Vincent VanGhoul than any member of  _ Mystery Inc.)  _ , his nose stuck to the ground, sniffing out clues. 

Two resistance sightings in two days? That was worrying.

Not to mention fucking sloppy.

“You look stressed,” Eddie commented, and out here, like this, he looked less like a guy who even owned a polo and more like a bloodsucking parasite. He let his fangs out, let the blue fire of his eyes blaze brightly in the evening gloom. 

Richie swallowed past the lump in his throat, missing the warm brown already, “Thanks,” he said, “it’s the stress.” It took him a moment to remember there were  _ eyes  _ on him; he was being watched. He was a  _ pet _ now, he had a role to play. Rules to follow. “Sir,” he added belatedly and with a wince so strong it was more like a flinch. 

His stomach was churning; that evening’s breakfast threatening to make an encore appearance all over the asphalt. The resistance group in the area was definitely his. He recognized the careful precision of Stan’s lettering, the impact of Bill’s words scrawled on bricks in crimson paint. 

**_N'est Plus Seul._ **

No Longer Alone.

Two buildings, now, had been vandalized in the same fashion. With the same words. In  _ French _ \-- Richie hadn’t even known that either of them  _ spoke  _ French.

And speaking of those chucklefucks-- how the fuck was he supposed to successfully spy on Eddie if they were going to be stirring up shit and putting him on high alert? Two nights in a row he’d been shoved into clothing Ru Paul himself would turn his nose up at (whether it be because the outfit was tragic or because Richie was trans, who could tell), and dragged out into the darkness to be the lone mortal in a sea of monsters.

“What is the risk looking like?” He asked, because shit, it looked like he was also a risk analyst, now. And he was right -- it was, in fact, invented before fun, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say; high?” So high. 

A low, noncommittal hum was the reply. It set Richie's palms itching; he turned away, wringing his hands together. In the throng of people gathered around watching, he caught someone’s eye. 

_ For the love of f u c k. _

“Ed-- Master Kaspbrak,” Richie tripped over his words, but he didn’t look at Eddie’s face to see how he responded to the slip, “may I take a field trip over yonder?” Where behind the yellow police tape bracketing off the neighborhood, stood  _ William Goddamn Denbrough _ , “I know the scruffy looking one wearing the terrible flannel; I can see if he saw anything?” Bat those eyelashes, Richie, they were so long they could cool a room. Bev envied them; use them to your advantage so you can go and commit a  _ murder _ .

Eddie hummed again; at some point he’d been given a tablet and he was reading whatever was on the screen carefully, “Just don’t wander too far,” he said, lifting his head and looking around, “humans out in this district may carry disease. I don’t want you to catch anything.”

Approximately sixteen retorts danced across the tip of Richie’s tongue like the first sip of an especially bitter wine. Seven of them were dick jokes, to be sure, but the rest were genuinely offended. Richie knew people from this district but Eddie was talking about them like they were rats out of the sewer. 

“I’ll be careful,” he said instead, tugging at the ends of his shirt sleeves, “if anyone bothers me I’ll just tell them I’m yours.” The words felt funny to say, unfamiliar. Unnatural. Yet, they still sent warmth pooling in his belly and rushing to his cheeks. He’d never belonged to anyone, before. It was hard to form romantic attachments when, just when you were beginning to realize that may be a thing you wanted, you were suddenly shoved to the very bottom of the food chain.

And that was  _ before  _ he started questioning his gender identity. 

Talk about  _ yikes _ .

How long did Stockholm Syndrome take to develop? Was there a way to look that up without Eddie knowing? Maybe Mike had a book on it in his library. He’d gotten to see it the previous night, after the first vaguely existential field trip. It was, truly, the best room in the manor. 

If you could even call it a room.

The entire ceiling was made of glass, letting in moonlight and starlight alike, and three were rows upon rows of books, as far as the eye could see. 

It even had shutters to block out the sun during the day.

Something shifted in Eddie’s expression as Richie spoke, “Yes,” he said slowly, “you are mine." Hoo, boy, Richie should not have liked that. He'd have a good time repressing that, later. "Have fun with your friend; I’ll collect you when I’ve finished here.” 

“Thank you,” Richie said, uncertain. He leaned in just a tad, “Do I bow?”

It startled a laugh out of Eddie that was so forceful he almost dropped his tablet, “ _ No _ ,” he said, with feeling, still chuckling, “fuck, Richie.” He looked around nervously, but his smile stayed in place. 

“It was a valid question!” Richie hissed, but he couldn’t hide his pleased grin in response as he turned on his heel and started off towards Bill.

Oh, they were going to have  _ words _ . Whole sentences, even! Honestly, he was feeling frisky enough to go for paragraphs if the fucker thought to get cheeky with him. 

By the time he was ducking under the police tape, smiling thinly at the vampire who had gotten stuck working crowd control, he’d just about lost the tiny shred of chill he maintained.

“Hello, Bill,” he said, softly.

Richie wasn’t exceptionally well known for his  _ softness _ ; everything about him was loud and abrasive. The way he spoke, the things he said, the clothes he wore when he was the one picking them out, even the music he liked. No, he wasn’t a soft person, not unless you counted his tummy which he would prefer you didn’t. He was soft for exactly one person in the whole world (Bev) and every animal he’d ever seen; any other time he was quiet: big fucking trouble, dead ahead, “Care for a drink?”

There was a bar, whose name had been well and truly forgotten over the years, at the end of the block. Right on the threshold of what Richie would consider wandering too far. To be fair, Richie could  _ wander  _ halfway to Boston and Eddie would still be able to sniff him out like a beagle, so it’s not like it  _ mattered  _ how far they went.

Once they were seated in a back corner with pints of whatever was on tap and didn’t include any bodily fluids, Richie dropped his expression like a house on a witch, “You mind telling me what the fuck you and Stan thought you were doing?” 

Bill took a long sip of his beer, ignoring meeting Richie’s eye like he was paid to do it. He didn’t speak. So, Richie kept talking. It was what he was fucking good at, anyhow.

“God, I should start calling you Billiards because you are  _ short a cue ball _ and I want to beat you to death with a fucking stick.”

“That’s not f-fair, Richie!” Bill complained, finally setting his beer down, “W-we w-were just d-doing what w-we always d-do!” His stutter was out in  _ full  _ force, today, kids. Which meant one thing and one thing only: this man was so full of shit it was turning his eyes fucking brown.

“I’d be more inclined to believe you if you could even say the fuckin’ words, B-B-Big B-B-Bill!” Richie snapped; he hadn’t touched his beer yet. Maybe wouldn’t touch it at all.

The Giant Goddamn Turtle Who Barfed Out The Universe knew he needed a fucking drink, but he was technically on the clock. And the alcohol might give him the extra push he needed to just drown Bill in the river.

“Are you guys trying to get me caught?” He hissed, lowering his voice, because unlike  _ some  _ people in the resistance,  _ he  _ wasn’t a moron, “It’s been less than  _ three days! _ You couldn’t shove your thumbs up your asses for a whole week? A week is all I ask, and yet, here I am. Out in the city. Dressed like a gay pirate. While the guy I’m supposed to be spying on assesses  _ your  _ risk!” 

“W-what are you wearing?” Bill asked, like that was the important part of what Richie had said. 

Richie sucked in a breath through his teeth, staring at the shorter man from behind his glasses, weighing the pros and cons of strangling one of his oldest and dearest friend, “Clothing,” he finally said, “because I’m trying to fly under the radar. Because I’m apparently the only one in this goddamn operation who has more than two brain cells to rub together to keep warm!” Besides Bev.

And honestly, fuck the whole lot of them (besides Bev). Making  _ him,  _ Richie Wentworth Tozier, be the  _ responsible  _ one. Fuck, that looked worse on him than the goddamn pirate outfit. 

“And,” he added waspishly, because fuck Bill that’s why, “your message didn’t make sense. Unless in the,” he looked towards the clock on the other side of the room -- he couldn’t see it, even with his coke bottle glasses, “however many hours that are  _ less than seventy-two _ ,” because, no, he was not going to let that go, “you found enough humans willing to put their necks on the line with us,  _ literally _ , to warrant  _ bragging _ \--”

“No, no,” Bill interrupted with a wave of his hand; Richie bristled at being interrupted, “it’s n-not us. W-we are still. V-very much alone.” But his eyes had lit up in a way Richie hadn’t seen in a good, long while. Bill was  _ excited _ about something.

“Brilliant,” Richie drawled, lifting his eyebrows to indicate his friend should continue talking.

“S-shut up,” Bill laughed, reaching for his beer again, just to be a jackass. After a long sip, he finally met Richie’s eyes, lips curled upwards, “W-we’re alone, but they aren’t.”

There was a long moment of silence, between Richie trying to figure out how, and on what planet, that would be considered a good thing, and Bill just sitting there smugly, where the former seriously reconsidered his policy on the murdering of friends, before Bill threw his hands up into the air, exasperated. Like he was trying to explain simple addition to Richie and Richie kept trying to answer that two plus two equaled  _ orange _ .

“T-think about it,” he urged, “we were s-stupid, to think that v-v-v--” he broke off with an aggravated grunt, “ _ you know _ ,” he seemed to give up on the word, instead curling both of his index fingers in front of his mouth to (hilariously) indicate fangs, “were the only thing that went b-bump in the night.”

“The more I think about it, the less I’m sure it’s something we should be  _ happy  _ about, bud.”

Shaking his head until his hair flopped over his forehead and Richie’s heart gave a lurch, just to remind him of That One Time In Middle School Richie Had Convinced Himself He Was In Love With Bill So He Wouldn’t Be Gay For Beverly (And The Joke Ended Up On Him Anyways. Thanks, Turtle), Bill slammed his hands on the sticky wooden table between them, “No! Think about it! I-if there are m-more m-monsters… w-where are they?” 

The dramatic fashion in which he looked both ways reminded Richie  _ why  _ Bill was one of his best friends; dumbass bullshittery and all.

“Decided humans weren’t worth the effort?” Richie tried. 

“D-doubtful,” Bill shook his head, “I’ve b-been reading--”

“Ooh, surprising.”

“--and t-the  _ you know whats _ are usually m-mentioned in folklore along w-with things l-l-like werewolves and w-witches. B-but where are t-they?” 

Holding his hands up in surrender, Richie finally let himself relax into his terrible, no good, uncomfortable chair and smile at the other man, “Hey, I already gave my answer. How about you give a guy a break, here?”

“S-Stan and I think that the  _ you know whats  _ are keeping them l-locked up. Somewhere.” 

“You think  _ bloodsuckers  _ have entire, multiple races of monsters just… sequestered away?”

**_Exe. Richie has stopped working. Please reboot_ ** .

“Bill, that’s fucking insane. In  _ every  _ possible sense!  _ Logistically, even!”  _ And how fucking often did he get to use that word? Fucking never, that's how. Because he wasn’t usually  _ the responsible one _ , “Where would they all  _ go _ ? Do they have a void? Are they  _ Janet _ ? How did you get Stanley in on this?”

“N-no!” Bill shook his head again, “L-listen, Richie, p-please. Give m-me a ch-ch-chance. W-we don’t th-think th-that th-there’s a lot of them. J-just one o-or two of each.” 

And, ooh, Richie could feel himself about to be a dick. But, really, Bill asked him for a chance when he and Stan swooped in before he’d had a  _ chance  _ to do more than meet Eddie and pass the fuck out in his living room before jeopardizing his entire operation for-- “You think they played  _ The Monster Mash  _ on Noah’s Goddamn Arc?”

Bill had stopped trying to speak, instead pulling a pen from, seemingly, nowhere (but probably the pocket of his flannel) and starting to draw some sort of complicated diagram on a cocktail napkin.

“Bill,” Richie forced out -- god, had he eaten a peanut? It felt like his throat was closing up, “Tell me you at least have a. A  _ source _ ? You didn’t just read this in one of those shitty horror novels you like? This is--”

The door of the bar opened and Eddie stepped in. Richie grabbed the napkin, startling Bill into dragging one long line of ink across the paper, and shoved it in his pocket, meeting his friend’s eye for just a moment before looking meaningfully over his shoulder. The conversation was not over, just paused. 

Richie had some fucking  _ questions _ , for Bill and especially Stan -- starting first and foremost with the possibility that they were  _ perhaps short a fucking marble or two? _

“Master Kaspbrak,” Richie forced a strained smile onto his face, standing up and stepping away from the table, “time to go, then?” There we go, Rich. Keep it light, Rich. Don’t let him know that you’re panicking inside over the possibility that he’d heard any bit of that conversation,  _ Rich _ . 

Just breathe. In and out. Blow out the birthday candles. Count your colors.

Eddie was staring at Bill, something Richie didn’t recognize on his face, “Yes,” he said, distracted, “but I wouldn’t mind being introduced to your friend, Richie. Manners? You remember those, right?” 

Richie blinked dumbly in the dim light of the -- of the  _ bar _ . It was a human district. The bar wasn’t crowded, and honestly Eddie was probably the only bloodsucker around for a block or two. He could fall back into their tenuous routine and tease Richie here. No more weird fronting and fucking  _ vampires _ .

And Richie. Richie could tease back. The difference between Master Kaspbrak and _Eddie._ The smile stretched a little more genuinely across his face and he should really, really not be so relieved to have a bloodsucker in his personal space.

“Manners?” He pressed his thumb to his lips like he was thinking hard about something; his  _ Loser  _ ring caught the light and glinted. Bill wore his on his right middle finger; he was spinning it then, like he was nervous. “Is that… code for something? Like. Gay for pay?”

Eddie rolled his eyes skyward for a brief moment, seemingly regretting his entire life, however long that may have been, before he looked back down at Bill and extended a hand, “I’m Edward Kaspbrak.”

Bill took the hand, shaking almost robotically. He was still sitting. He hadn’t moved when Eddie had come through the door, “Bill,” he said simply.

“Ah, so you have a name besides the,” Eddie shot a cheeky side eye at Richie, "‘scruffy one in the terrible flannel’. That’s good.”

And that seemed to be the thing that broke whatever spell had been cast over Bill, because he turned to Richie with the most accusing doe eyes, "T-t-terrible?" He asked.

"It's green and brown, man. You're wearing sweatpants."

"And y-you're dressed like you're g-going to a David Bowie th-themed Halloween party, so I don’t wanna f-f-fuckin’ hear it fr-from you, Tozier.” 

Eddie raised a hand to his mouth, hiding a smile behind black leather gloves. Richie looked away, eyes firmly locked on the dingy ceiling above their heads. But, still, he refused to lose, “You chose to wear that atrocity, Denbrough. Eddie picked out mine.”

“Eddie?” Bill repeated.

_ Shit _ .

“That would be me,” Eddie waggled those same, long, butter soft fingers in acknowledgment, “I told Richie, and now I suppose I’m telling you, as Richie’s friend, to call me Eddie as long as we’re not anywhere you would get in trouble for it.” He was rambling, a little. Richie tried very hard not to find it incredibly endearing. 

He mostly lost when he realized that, though it was faint, there was just the very slightest tinge of pink across Eddie’s deathly pale cheeks. 

_ Cute, cute, cute! _

_ “ _ Eddie,” Bill said again, and he looked a little pale himself. Like he was going to faint. “Okay, w-well,” he rose from his own chair, finally, eyes skittering between Eddie and Richie, unsure where to look. Where it was safe to look, “I t-told Stan I’d meet him so I’d b-better b-be going.”

“Of course,” Eddie nodded, keeping that small, nonthreatening smile on his face. Like Bill was a scared animal he was trying to coax out of a corner, “it was a pleasure to meet you, Bill.”

“Y-you too.” 

Richie watched Bill leave, his breath caught in his chest, rattling off of his ribs; an ill-fated game of pinball if he’d ever seen one.

“You didn’t, like, petrify him or anything,” he finally said after far too long, “he just has a stutter. It’s been around since we were kids.”

Eddie hummed, motioning to the bar, “Have a drink with me, Richie?”

“Only if you order a Bloody Mary and let me laugh at you,” was the deal that Richie’s mouth decided on with absolutely no input from his brain as he slid onto a rickety old stool that, maybe once, had a leather seat.

Wrinkling his nose, Eddie claimed the stool next to the human, _his_ human, “I don’t like tomato,” he admitted, “I wasn’t even going to order anything laced at all. I just want plain whiskey.”

Huh. Richie hadn’t thought vampires were able to eat or drink anything that wasn’t at the very least blood adjacent. He said as much and Eddie laughed.

“It doesn’t do anything for us nutritionally,” he explained, “but some of us still like the taste. And besides, alcohol is alcohol.”

Richie, who had carted his previously untouched beer to the bar with them, used it to salute, “I’ll fucking cheers to that one, Eds.”

“Don’t call me that!” There was no bite in his words; not even a little bit for show, “Did you find out anything?”

Did he… oh. He'd used the guise of interrogating Bill about maybe having seen what had happened downtown.

"No," he said quickly, averting his eyes, staring into the depths of his beer like it had the answers to all of his problems, "no, Bill didn't see anything. Sorry, Eds."

Eddie sighed too deeply, like he hadn't breathed in so long that he'd forgotten how, "Don't worry about it. I didn't find anything either," he paused, "Thank you. For trying."

"Don't mention it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> germophobic neurotic vampire Vincent vanghoul who can tell what i was watching while writing this
> 
> and yes thats a good place reference dont @ me


	4. in all your darkest hours have you ever heard me sing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> obtuse rubber goose green moose lava juice

Vampires were never known to shy away from excess and luxury. Truly, they were very nearly fucking  _ Gatsbian  _ in their indulgence. It would make sense, then, for them to like to party.

Richie wasn’t sure why he didn’t see it coming. But fuck, was it convenient. Even as he watched, sprawled across an overly expensive chaise lounge in Eddie’s study as the vampire scowled at the mirror, he couldn’t bother to be worried.

Turns out, vampires did have a reflection, so long as the mirror in question wasn’t silver-backed. Which made sense -- vampires couldn’t stand silver, and Eddie definitely did  _ not  _ look like a man who couldn’t see what he looked like. 

And he looked. Good. Very good.  _ Sinfully  _ good. Suit so deep blue it was almost black. A  _ tie _ . 

Sure, he’d seen Eddie in suits before, but that was for work, and he’d maintained (silently) that the cardigans served him far better. But. That was before he’d seen Eddie’s Going-Out Suit. 

It was a pity Richie was going to have to spend all night working.

The party was being held at the manor of Tom Rogan. Otherwise known as The Asshole Who Bought Bev, and Richie hadn’t seen anyone from The Resistance since meeting up with Bill in that ramshackle bar two weeks beforehand; he had shit to do.

There’d been few moments for snooping, but Richie had taken every single one of them, despite his growing attachment to Eddie. 

The Resistance had managed to intercept and free a bus-and-a-half full of humans destined for blood camps; three high level vampires were killed in an attack in what used to be Chicago, based on one end of a phone call Richie had managed to overhear while pretending to read on the same chaise he was currently sprawled upon. And, most importantly, he’d found out that Robert Gray went by another name when it came to his more. Unsavory activities.

_ Pennywise _ .

He felt like he’d been pretty fucking helpful for only spending just over two weeks in Eddie’s house. There were other things he’d learned; things not helpful to the resistance. Things that Richie wanted to not care about but clutched close to his chest despite himself. 

For one, the mirror thing.

Also, Eddie was just over four hundred years old. He’d been turned by his mother  _ who wasn’t a vampire _ . She had paid someone to turn him. She was so scared of losing him, that she made sure she never would.

_ “Now, I know that she was just sick. She probably had Munchausen by proxy _ ,”  _ Eddie confided late one evening, swirling amber liquid in a delicate crystal glass while Richie sat across from him nursing his own drink, “I don’t know if that makes it better.” He paused to down his drink in one swoop -- Richie’s eyes fell to the long line of his neck, the bob of his throat as he swallowed, “She  _ made  _ me sick, so I would have no choice but to stay with her. Is that love?  _ Can  _ that be love?” _

_ It explained a lot, really. Why Eddie was such a goddamn hypochondriac despite being physically unable to catch anything; his encyclopedic knowledge of  _ Grey’s Anatomy  _ (the book, not the Thursday night guilty pleasure); all of the fruits, vegetables, and superfoods Richie found on his plate every evening. _

_ It had been drilled into him his whole life; was the whole reason for his unlife. _

_ “Can a caged bird love?” Richie spoke without thinking, which wasn’t a surprise; the surprise came when Eddie looked at him, eyes that warm, endless brown; the same color as the whiskey in the flickering firelight that lit the room. _

_ “God,” he said softly, “I hope so.” _

The office had a different air that night, compared to the feel of it while Eddie angrily mumbled death threats into the silk of his tie. 

Richie smiled; another thing he’d learned? Eddie couldn’t tie a tie; which is why he never wore one. It wasn’t a fashion statement. He was just a  _ dork _ .

“Come here,” Richie straightened, setting his wine aside, affection blooming in his chest, roots curling through his ribs and hugging his lungs, “I’ll do it.”

Eddie didn’t hesitate, crossing in room in a few quick strides and bending at the waist so Richie could get at his throat. He smelled fucking good -- like, stupid fucking good. Richie had perused the fragrance counter at his local  _ Dillard’s  _ before the takeover and nothing from  _ Armani  _ to  _ Yves Saint Laurent  _ had smelled like  _ that _ . 

“How did you get so good at this?” He asked, and Richie snorted.

“Trying to pass before getting my hands on testosterone, man. I would have done just about anything. Ties were nothing.” Bless his goddamn father; even vampires needed dentists, apparently. And Wentworth Tozier was the best of the best -- and being so, he’d called in some favors, and Richie got his Boy Juice. “How come you  _ can’t _ do this? You’re nearly four centuries old. You were around when they invented the  _ wheel _ \--”

“I was  _ not _ , you little shit.” When he spoke, the stubble on his neck grazed against Richie’s knuckles; rubbing them raw, right down to the nerve. His skin tingled.

He finished the knot quickly after that, a bit of jazz hands for flair, and so he could gather his bearings, before words came out like a frog’s croak as the roots tightened around his lungs-- choking him, “Ta da,” there was music in the background, something soft and crooning -- it sounded like Stevie Nicks, “True Love.” 

Eddie blinked his enormous Bambi eyes, righting himself and wrinkling his eyebrows down at Richie, “What?”

Richie gestured towards the knot, avoiding Eddie’s eye like he was being paid to do it, “It’s called a True Love knot. I don’t know why; it’s just four squares. But that’s what they call it. My mom looked up a bunch of unique knots when I first came out; she said I’d always been different and I shouldn’t stop at something as mundane as a  _ Windsor.”  _

Fuck, that memory was still clear as day. He could hear her voice; smell her perfume. 

_ “You know I’d rather be alone than be without you.”  _ Stevie crooned.

“Anyways,” Richie pushed to his feet, throwing his arms akimbo and striking the most ridiculous pose he could come up with on such short notice, “do I pass muster, Master Kaspbrak?" He’d gotten better at addressing Eddie in public, at least. Half the reason he’d had so few reasons to snoop was the fact that he was dragged everywhere the vampire had to go. 

He tried very hard not to feel like a chihuahua in a pocketbook.

Hard, especially when he was still being dressed up like one. The billowy shirts and tight, high waisted pants continued to be a trend -- though, Richie had been seen pilfering a soft cardigan here and there in the manor. Party Mode, though, seemed to consist of anything and everything ever worn in a Jane Austen novel.

Billowy shirt and high waisted pants were still essential, but with the added fun of a vest and jacket. 

Richie felt fucking stupid. 

And in the powder blue and deep brown, he felt a _lotta_ bit (not a little bit) like Belle in the first half of  _ Beauty and The Beast.  _

Eddie assured him that he looked just fine, which was all well and good coming from the guy who got to wear regular clothes and looked like sex on legs. It was also complete bullshit.

It was impossible to not feel stuck out like a sore thumb, or a punctured vein, surrounded by the most beautiful people to ever have existed. Richie wasn’t kidding when he’d said that all vampires were beautiful.

They were  _ ethereal _ . 

The real mindfuck was the  _ humans _ among them -- Eddie wasn’t the only one who deigned to bring his human pet along to the party. They hung off the arms of their masters like jewels, glittering and beautiful and completely shit-scared of stepping a toe out of line.

But Richie only had eyes for one particular human: a leggy, mouthy redhead that was just as likely to kiss him as she was to stab him with her high heel. And she was easy to find, given her bloodsucker was the host.

Bev looked. Well, not good. Not if you really  _ knew  _ her, like Richie did. She was exhausted and there were bruises, new and old, mostly covered by her makeup but not quite completely. From an outsider’s point of view, though, he was sure she looked like she stepped off of a runway, through a magazine shoot, and right into the parlor they were milling around in. 

Richie had never been so happy to see anyone in his entire life. When he finally caught her eye, he watched the tension drain from her shoulders and her eyes light up, just a little. She said quick goodbyes to whoever she was mingling with and headed towards him and Eddie like a flower towards the sunlight.

The second she was close enough, he was reaching for her. Drawing her in. Tucking his face into her fiery hair, and laughing when she hugged him back like he was the only thing keeping her afloat in dark water. 

“Gods, I missed the shit out of you, Marsh.” He sighed.

“I missed you more,” she shot back, voice a little watery, as she pulled back to look at him. Her dress was. Not very Jane Austen-ey at all. She looked more like a courtesan, dripping in diamonds.

“What are you wearing?” He asked, turning to Eddie and breaking whatever spell he’d been under since the moment he’d heard her voice in the crowd, and his entire world narrowed to  _ Beverly Goddamn Marsh _ , his best gal, his favorite human to ever exist. Nike of Samothrace in screaming color. “I thought we all had to dress like Lestat, Ed-- Master Kaspbrak.”

Eddie looked perturbed by something, Richie couldn’t begin to guess at what, “Generally, that is the tradition,” he said, “however some masters have their own approach.”

Richie’s eyebrows drew together, “She’s practically naked. I want to give her my  _ coat _ , she’s wearing so little.”

“ _ She’s _ standing right here,” Bev rolled her eyes, reaching for Richie’s hand and tangling their fingers together. She gave them a squeeze, “This is what my master prefers,” she said, and Richie watched her eyes dim a little more with every word, “so it is what I wear.” 

_ Don’t declare your hate for a high ranking bloodsucker in a room full of high ranking bloodsuckers, Richie _ , the little cartoon Stan in Richie’s brain reached for his yardstick, slapping it against a blackboard that just said  _ DON’T BE STUPID  _ in big, bold letters. 

But fuck, did he want to. Wanted to scream. Wanted to reach for a  _ stake _ , Bill’s plan and weird (weird,  _ weird _ ) theories be damned. He’d love to spray Tom Rogan down in holy water and then hang him out in the goddamn sunlight to dry. 

“That’s nice,” is what Richie said, his teeth clenched so tightly he could see his dad wincing in the back of his mind, “Bev, have you met Master Kaspbrak before?”

“No,” Bev said smoothly, tossing her hair over one shoulder and turning on the charm like she was throwing the switch in  _ Frankenstein’s  _ basement, “I haven’t had the pleasure. Beverly Marsh.” The hand she held out was her left; there was a ring on her finger with a rock the size of Texas, “For the moment, anyways.”

All of the blood drained from Richie’s face so quickly he thought he might literally, actually faint. A vampire couldn’t marry a human. A vampire  _ could not  _ marry a human. If Tom planned on marrying Bev he planned on--

“When?” He asked, probably cutting off but he couldn’t hear shit through the sound of his own pulse in his ears, “Bev--”

“Next month,” she answered, and fuck, she was such a good actress. Had the world been different she could have been in movies, could have done whatever the fuck she wanted, really, but the world wasn’t different and she wasn’t doing what she wanted, instead she was--, “I believe you’ve recieved an invitation, Master Kaspbrak,” she said.

“This morning,” Eddie said back, “Congratulations, Beverly.” 

_ “Congratulations _ ?” Richie gasped, and he couldn’t even pretend that he’d meant to say it, even if he could, there was no way he could ever hide his face.

This had to be what dying feels like. 

The fucking bloodsuckers were going to try to take Bev.

“Richie,” Eddie’s hand grasped his elbow, his voice was a warning, the squeeze an attempt at comfort. There were eyes on them, “Let’s go outside. I’m sure Ms. Marsh has other guests to attend to.”

He had to be pried away, practically by his ear, keeping his fingers clenched with Bev’s until the last possible moment, Eddie’s hand curled like iron around his elbow, leading him away from the throng of the main party, off into a side room.

The door shut behind them and the background static of the rest of the world cut off with the click.

Richie couldn’t breathe.

They’d had fail-safes in place for all kinds of possibilities, contingencies for every problem they could think of arising. They never, in their wildest dreams, thought about what to do if one of them was turned. Vampires were a selective bunch; picky to the very core. Worst case had always been death, but  _ un _ death was so, so much worse.

“Richard!” It wasn’t his name; Eddie knew it wasn’t his name. Eddie was talking to him. Eddie’s hands were on his face. Eddie’s eyes were brown, and wide, lined with thick dark lashes. Eddie was right there; he was right there.

Richie kissed him.

It wasn’t a good kiss, not by any stretch of the word- it was messy and desperate, and Richie was crying, a little, but it was a kiss. Richie’s hands fisted in Eddie’s shirt and he relished in the crisp fabric wrinkling under his grip. He expected Eddie to push him away, or fling himself to the other side of the room in overdramatic, vampiric disgust. So he shoved his whole body into the kiss with all his strength. It was the only chance he was ever going to get, so he might as well go all in.

Except, Eddie didn’t push him away.

Eddie stood stock still, his mouth so cool under Richie’s that it was almost like kissing plastic. Like making out with a mannequin.

In the sprawling space between one heartbeat and the next, the hands on Richie’s cheeks had slid into his hair, curling into the soft curls at the base of his neck and tugging, softening the kiss into something that could actually be called, well, a kiss.

Richie melted, curling his body down and around, letting his death grip relax, sliding his arms around Eddie’s middle instead and just holding.

Shit. Fuck. It was just what he wanted but probably the exact opposite of what he needed to be doing.

Except.

Except before he kissed Eddie, he couldn’t breathe; the flowers that had bloomed in his chest the first time they’d met, the first time he’d made Eddie smile and saw those stupid fucking dimples, had grown too large. They’d taken over. Burrowed into his flesh and made a home. Curled around his lungs and squeezed tighter with every soft smile, every huffed laugh.

He’d set out with the intent of barely speaking to the man—let alone seeking him out on lazy evenings, curling up in his office and reading until the quiet clacking of Eddie’s fingers on his keyboard lulled him into a comfortable doze.

He wasn’t supposed to like the vampire, and he’d tried at every opportunity to squash the growing affection; to stop the flowers from spreading. Instead, all he did was block his own airway until kissing Eddie was easier than breathing.

Eddie pulled away first, but he didn’t go far. He rested his forehead against Richie’s, taking a deep, unneeded breath, “What the fuck?” He asked.

Richie reeled back and laughed. He couldn’t help it. It was so absurd. So ridiculous that he would have been sure it was all a dream, if he didn’t feel so acutely like he was dying. He laughed, shook his head, and blinked rapidly against the tears that were pricking against his eyes for the second time in as many minutes.

“I—” He, what, exactly? He was a dumb ass? That much was obvious; Cartoon Stan was practically having an aneurysm on the other side of his skull, and he was actively dreading Real Stan’s reaction when he found out that Richie had locked lips with the undead. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

But it was too late to take it back.

Fuck.

It was too late to take it back. It wasn’t a game of solitaire on Eddie’s tablet. There was no undo button he could hit. It wasn’t a hypothetical situation- curled on the chaise and watching Eddie worry his bottom lip between his teeth, wondering what he tasted like. It wasn’t a fantasy he pulled up late in the day when he couldn’t sleep, and ran in his mind on a loop.

“They’re going to turn her,” he whispered, looking to the ceiling, keeping his voice pitched low, “and I’m in here fraternizing with the fucking enemy.”

“The enemy?” Eddie looked stricken, “Richie,” he reached out, and Richie let him take his hand, cradle it between both of his like it was something precious, “Oh, Richie.”

‘No!” Richie pulled away, cradling his hand to his chest like he’d been burned—he felt immolated. Like he should be a pile of ash on the marble floors. Like a livewire, sparking wildly and without direction. Chaotic and a little lost. “Eddie, we. We can’t. I’m human and you’re—”

“A bloodsucking creature of the night?”

Well, he wasn’t going to put it that way, but, “Yes,” Richie breathed, deflating, sinking to the floor with his back against the far wall. He settled his head between his knees, curling his fingers into his own hair, just trying to remember how to be when it felt like the whole world had been ripped out from underneath him.

Fuck.

He was so goddamn stupid.

He was so goddamn defeated. He’d ruined everything; Eddie was going to send him away and if he wasn’t arrested or immediately sent to a blood camp, he would be useless to the resistance. They wouldn’t want anything to do with him, no matter the sway Bill and Stan held. He’d have proved himself to be too much trouble. A liability.

He never could do anything right, could he? Send him to spy on a vampire and he ended up in love with him, wasn’t that just the—

What the fuck?

_ What the fuck? _

“Oh my god,” he whispered, croaked, really, to the ground below him, “I’m in love with you.”

Eddie wasn’t supposed to hear it; it wasn’t meant to be a declaration. It was just one of those revelations that needed to be spoken out loud for it to really sink in.

And, truly, it was spoken too low for any human to ever have heard.

But Eddie wasn’t human, and he heard every syllable, every hitch in Richie’s breathing as he tried to get the thought out before it left him floundering and lost again.

A sharp inhalation of breath was all of the warning Richie got, before Eddie’s hands were back on his face, lifting his head from his knees until they were staring each other in the eye; Richie’s were watery and red-rimmed, Eddie’s were ringed with electric blue.

“Say it again,” Eddie demanded, breathless without the need for breath, “please. Please, Richie, say it again.”

And, shit? What did he have to fucking lose? His life? Oh, fucking well. Fucking  _ whatever _ .

Who cared?

“I said I’m in love with you.”

Not Richie, that’s who. He’d officially run out of  _ fucks _ . He’d hit the  _ wall _ , face first,  _ Spirited Away  _ style, without a backup plan. And even if he’d had a plan it sure as hell wouldn’t have included falling in  _ love  _ with a  _ vampire _ . 

This time, Eddie kissed him. Shoved him back against the wall with the force of it. Licked into his mouth and stole the air from his lungs in one fell swoop. Fuck, it was good. It was really good. 

He’d imagined kissing Eddie, sure. Fantasized about it, then lied to himself about the nature of his own damn fantasies.

His expectations fell short in every possible way -- Eddie kissed him like his life depended on it, like the slide of their lips together was the only thing that mattered in the whole goddamn world. Eddie held his face like it was precious, rubbing his thumbs against Richie’s cheekbones, urging his mouth to open wider, to give him more space to blow his fucking mind.

“Wait--” Richie’s hands, curled around Eddie’s shoulders, flattened, palm down, and shoved, “Wait. Eddie,  _ wait _ .” Eddie pulled away, looking like a hangdog, and Richie’s heart clenched. Fuck.  _ Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, do not throw up. “ _ I need to talk to you. I. We need to  _ talk _ .”

“The room is soundproof,” Eddie said, and oof, even his voice was wrecked, “you can say anything you want.”

That was good to know, for the distant worry that the bloodsuckers on the other side of the door had heard Richie’s insane mumbling of fraternization and then. Fuck. The sounds of him and Eddie kissing.

But, still. Don’t try your fucking luck there, Rich.

“Not here,” he said, “I can’t. Not here.” He was shaking, god, fuck. He was shaking so hard. Breathing in and out. Focusing on not  _ vomiting  _ on the guy he’d just realized he had romantic feelings for. 

“Okay,” Eddie’s hand smoothed over his hair, carding through his curls the same way he would pet Sir Pouncival when she decided that love was on her agenda, “okay. Let’s go home, baby.”

_ Baby _ .

“Don’t you have to mingle?” That was the whole reason they’d come.

“I have to make sure you’re okay, sweetheart.”

_ Sweetheart _ .

Jesus Christ upside down getting fucked with a cactus while riding a pogo stick.

Richie was _screwed_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> giant snake birthday cake large fries chocolate shake

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr and twitter -- both are pansexualorgana 
> 
> maybe watch an underworld movie or 2 to get like a real feel for the only good vampire franchise that everyone fucking sleeps on
> 
> christ yall remember when my end notes had like links and shit and punctuation boy how the mighty have f a l l e n


End file.
